e often ask ourselves: Why do people commit evil behavior?  I am referring here not to “small” wrongs such as the theft of an apple or a robbery where the victim is in no way physically harmed.  I am thinking of what we generally refer to as heinous moral wrongs.  A most salient example would be soldiers who rape the women of a village.  For one thing, it seems next to impossible to commit an act of rape and not realize that one is causing the victim great anguish.  For another, no soldier who commits such an act thinks even for a moment that such a thing should be done to the women of his town.  So how can it be that soldiers do what is so heinously wrong on just about every conceivable account?  If I can explain this, then there is much egregious immoral behavior that I can explain. 

I believe that the answer regarding soldiers has to do with the importance of fitting-in; and this is significant because fitting-in tends to contribute to our psychological well-being.  Among other things, it gives us a sense of belonging; and that is not trivial to our psychological well-being.

The soldier case seems stunning until one remembers that for most men not being perceived as homosexual is of the utmost importance.  Men do all sorts of things in order to make sure that there is next to no chance that anyone will entertain that thought about them.  It is easy to miss this reality on college campuses where being gay is to some extent valorized.  In the real world, nothing of the sort is true.  Instead, being gay is at best tolerated.  We are all for gay people just so long as everyone knows that we, naturally, are straight. 

Sexual orientation is not like ethnicity, for instance, where people are often willing to withhold judgment until they know more about the person.  No, the presumption of heterosexuality is in place from the outset except in very rare circumstances.  The assumption of heterosexuality is a fundamental aspect of the soldier mindset.  One can no doubt see where this argument is going. 

All human beings are self-monitors; though, to be sure, some are much better at this than others.  Thus, with rare exception we know whether or not our behavior fits in with the on-going norms regarding this or that group.  If John wears a coat and tie, he does not think for a moment that he should be seen as dressing like a “thug”.  By contrast, if John wears his pants halfway down his ass in typical “thug” style, it will not come as any surprise to him that no thinks that he is off to perform altar-boy service.

On the battlefield, few things are more important than fitting-in; and among male soldiers heterosexuality is one of the defining aspects of fitting-in.  Accordingly, any and every male soldier tends to be very, very, very concerned that his behavior underscores the social reality that he is heterosexual.  To this, we need only add that the bond here plays a most important role in the psychological well-being of soldiers under circumstances of extreme duress.

In the context of war, it is better that soldiers come off as men—namely heterosexuals—than that they take the higher moral ground, where doing so leaves their heterosexuality very much open to question.  This mindset will get us easily enough to the rape behavior that we see in war, and which we rightly find ever so appalling. 

Think of a group of soldiers on the battlefield as a closed community.  In that context, fitting-in is of the utmost importance.  Accordingly, it takes very little to raise doubts about whether a person fits in or not. It is this reality that makes the issue of heterosexuality an easy target.  One is already in the business of killing the enemy.  From that standpoint, raping enemy women does not obviously count as a much worse moral wrong.  And to this all one needs to add is that the sex with woman is a way of affirming heterosexuality.  This creates a combustible moment of immorality. 

Of course, we know that rape should not ever be a means of affirming masculinity.  But a moral argument of this sort among heterosexual men in the throes of war is not apt to have the salience that it has among philosophers evaluating arguments and behavior in the context of their very affirming office, where it very difficult to make sexual orientation an issue. 

To the above considerations, we need only add the following.  Most of us deal with not fitting-in one context if it is the case that we have considerable moral standing in another context and, moreover, we are able to invoke that context to some degree or the other.  Precisely what is missing with soldiers on the battlefield is another context in which they can have moral standing vis-à-vis their fellow soldiers.  Thus, it is in fact makes it easier to go along with the obnoxious rape behavior or at least not to report it, then to take a moral stand against it.  For if nothing else, going along with the obnoxious rape behavior insures that their unity with their fellow soldiers remains intact.  And if anything is important on the battlefield, unity with one’s fellow soldiers is.  Doing anything to destroy that unity would be foolish. 

Or, to put the point a different way:  When one is on the battlefield, what most certainly is true is that destroying the unity that one has with one’s fellow soldiers requires more courage than most of us have. 

There are contexts in which sexual orientation is invariably a particularly salient matter.  For the moment, at least, war is one of those contexts.  Indeed, it is a context where some of the deepest bonds possible are forged between males but entirely without any possibility of sexual overtones.  Or so it is hoped.  This very strength from the standpoint of being effective soldiers makes for a very serious moral liability. 

n terms of an outward expression, there are few gestures that have greater moral gravity than appearing before the Wailing Wall wearing a yarmulke.  As the photo below indicates, this is precisely what Barack Obama did 23 July 2008.  As it turns out, we know the contents of the note and prayer that he wedged into the wall: “Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just”; “protect my family”.  I am so very happy that the contents of the note do now overshadow the symbolic significance of Obama’s appearing before the Wailing Wall. 

merican democracy has come to be about entitlements and only about entitlements.  Everyone is entitled to just about everything.  In particular, American democracy has come to be entirely shorn of gratitude.  I hold a very simple thesis, namely that democracy shown of gratitude will flounder.  This is because few things nourish a sense of community—fellow feeling, if you wlll—like gratitude.  Now, it might be thought that being rightly entitled to something excludes having gratitude for that the thing one receives.  Not so, however, as the case of parental love magnificently shows.

If there are any indisputable truths in a world of uncertainty and relativism, it is that parents ought to love their children and that children are entitled to being the undisputed object of the love of their parents.  Yet, if anything else is also true, it is that every child who has been the undisputed object of the love of her or his parents should have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude towards them.  When parental love it at its best, there may not be any form of gratitude that can rightly surpass it.  Once more, though, I point out that children are surely entitled to the love of their parents. 

Democracy shorn of gratitude becomes a plethora of citizens who have little or no concern for one another accept for what they can get from others.  In this respect, the language of rights has done enormous damage to a sense of fellow-feeling.  For the language of rights have become synonymous with what people are owed, where the sense of being owed is privileged in a way that allows for no regard whatsoever for the goodwill with which people have served up what is owed. 

Democracy without gratitude exemplifies what I call the manna-from-heaven mentality.  No one gives up something so that others may have something.  Rather, it all just falls from heaven. 

A marvelous example of this is the claim on the part of some non-citizens that they have a right to become citizens of the United States, as if there is something called the government with endless resources.  Never mind that we are having trouble doing right by those who are already citizens. 

Sometimes the elderly present themselves as if they have a right to anything and everything that they might need in terms of medical assistance.  Of course, any society should make an effort to help its elderly.  That truth, however, does not change the fact that helping the elderly means that some resources cannot go elsewhere. Even for the elderly, there are no funds that descend from the heavens.

This way of looking at things point to why a democracy at its best must also be one in which gratitude abounds.  For it is necessarily the case that decent law-abiding citizens sustain the well-being of other members of society.  Even those who merely “put up” with the laws are sustaining the well-being of others.  And sometimes in life, a person deserves a lot of credit for doing just that: “putting up” with the behavior or law in question.

The goodwill of citizens makes for a salubrious moral climate in which to live.  And things have gone terribly wrong when we have become so fixated with our own self-interests that we cannot see the goodwill of others. 

Interestingly, teaching provides a marvelous example in this regard. Nothing is more obvious than that if a student earned an “A” for a course, then the instructor should give the student an “A” for the course.  Yet, there is all the difference in the world between an instructor took delight in the student’s learning and who was marvelously supportive and encouraging of the student, on the one hand, and an instructor who to no avail did everything permissible to see to it that the student would fail.  Gratitude is owed in the first case although the student earned the grade. 

A society shorn of gratitude is a less decent society.  More importantly, it is a society that is less able to surmount the difficulties that confront it.  This is because from the outset people do not see one another as allies but as hostile competitors instead. 

When we experience gratitude towards another we are motivated to act on that person’s behalf even we do not in any way have to do so.  There is a fundamental level with which we identify with that person.

The United States has become the land of rights-assertion.  We are owed one thing after another—almost as it were ours in the first place; and those who do not rush to give us what we take ourselves to be owed are bastards.  That is, in our characterization of that to which we have a right, we have deemed the other a hostile component. 

It is a simple truth that people who have masterfully cultivated hostility towards one another are in no position at all to confront in a united way the problems that could be resolved if only people would work together in unison.  And while some problems can be solved through fierce competition, some of the deepest problems have their solution only in the unity that comes with fellow-feeling.  Defeating the Nazis, for instance, was not tied to fierce competition, but to nations working in unison with one another. 

In one straightforward sense, gratitude is so much weaker than love.  Yet, like the warm sunlight that comes through a window, experiences of gratitude remain ever so memorable and always far more expansive.  It is not possible for everyone to have feelings of love for one another.  But universal gratitude, or something very close to that, is very much a possibility. 

The America of John F. Kennefy spoke to that possibility.  By contrast, the American of the present has lost the will to speak to that possibility.  Doing so would resonate with so very few.  It is no wonder that America is floundering.   

hina is an economic power.  China also provides an extraordinary lesson to ethnic groups in the United States who are forever talking about being oppressed as victims of this or that form of racism.  China’s lesson is a very simple one: “Do you really wish that others who are not of “your kind” to take you seriously?  Well, it suffices to become an economic power with which “the other kind” must contend, and your wish will be fulfilled by “those others” in spite of themselves.  For you see, the rest of the world has to take China seriously whether the rest of the world wants to or not.  Both China and the rest of the world know precisely that.

I have no interest in arguing whether racism of this or that kind still exists in the United States.  As far as I can see all sorts of people dislike one another.  Blacks and Asians are not exactly blood brothers in spirit.  Cooperation between the two groups is virtually non-existent.  Blacks are jealous of Asians and Asians despise Blacks.  And while there is presumably some bond between Latinos and Blacks, that bond is more fragile than both sides seem willing to acknowledge. 

If one takes Whites out of the picture entirely, there remains more than enough hostility between the remaining groups to keep everyone on edge.

But say what we want, the economic success of China in the world and of Asians in the United States is a most valuable lesson; and it is high time that Blacks and Latinos acknowledge and follow that lesson.

If Asians can be an economic force in America, then surely Blacks and Latinos can be.  The sheer numbers make that a possibility. 

As the case of Asian success shows, when a people become an economic force, then racism will bow to the reality of economic.  Whether I like you or not: If I have to contend with your economic muscle, I am going to find a way to be, at the very least, polite to you.  I am not going to call you a “nigger” if (i) it is manifestly clear to me that I need your patronage to survive and (i) you will go elsewhere if I am not polite to you. 

The failure to appreciate this reality is why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson failed as black leaders.  They were much more interested in cultivating White guilt than black economic muscle.  It does not take much insight to see that White guilt can in the end be rather patronizing: “There they go again.  Let’s admit to racism so that we can get them to shut up and go away!”  As we all know from childhood, it is easy enough to say “I am sorry” and not mean it. 

But the lesson that China has made abundantly clear is that if you need me, then I won’t have to worry about you saying “I am sorry”, precisely because I can be confident that you will bend over backwards to appease me. 

The religious ideal of forgiveness is no doubt a very wonderful one.  But most of us do not come even to close to realizing that ideal in saying “I am sorry”.  Rather, it is simply out of expedience that we make that utterance.  But if it is out of expediency that an apology is offered, it is much, much, much, much better that the my apology to you flows from the fact that I cannot do without you than from the fact that I merely want you shut up and go away.  That is the lesson that China has taught the world.

This lesson is so patently obvious that it is a mystery to me that Blacks and Latinos to do not readily see it and conduct themselves accordingly.  Grasping this insight does not require a degree in economics.  Indeed, as far as I can tell most of the Asians who own stores (cleaners, grocery stores, or restaurants) in the United States do not have a degree in economics, nor do most of the citizens of China have a degree in economics. 

Yet, Jesse Jackson’s most philosophical argument was that Blacks should be referred to as “African-Americans” as a way of making explicit the African roots of black people—as if anyone has ever looked at an unmistakable Black person and wondered: Does that person’s ancestors hail from Africa or India or China? 

All sorts of political correct folks have made a point of using the term “African Americans”.  Yet, nothing at all has changed in terms of having actual respect for the group in question.  As I noted above in these remarks, an act of appeasement is not thereby an act of respect.  Can anyone really believe that making explicit that Black Americans have African roots is the most important issue that should have concerned Blacks? 

The lesson to be learnt from China is absolutely telling.  There is little doubt that a serious violation of human rights has occurred and continues to occur in China.  Yet, the Olympic Games will there will be held there, anyhow.  Not only that, all sorts of world leaders have managed to justify being present for the opening ceremonies.  Does anyone wonder what the real explanation for this deference on the part of world leaders? I should hope not.  What is surely obvious is that given China’s economic might nations do not want to get on China’s wrong side.  Now, that is power—economic power, to be exact.

Whether American Blacks hail from Africa or Hades or the Pearly Gates, what will ensure their proper standing in the United States is none other than their economic standing.  For some Blacks, this means buying only those things that have an African origin.  That is just plain silly.  Whether Black Americans eat French croissants or East African maandazi, if Blacks have economic clout they will command the respect of others. 

And surely that is the lesson that China has made abundantly clear.  No one thinks for a moment that China’s economic might is tied to the fact that Chinese people consume only Chinese dishes such as Adzuki beans and Bok Choy. 

Quite simply, one has to be dysfunctional not to grasp this lesson from China and to keep going on and on and on about racism.  Most significantly, the issue is not whether racism is an issue.  Rather, the point is that the most effective way to make racism a non-issue to exhibit economic muscle.  There are many gods.  Indisputably, however, economic might is one of them.  To that god, people have always found a way to show genuine deference—and not just displays of appeasement.  To the god of economic might, there is always an altar in every port.  What matters most is winning favor with the god of economic might—and not what the physical appearances of that mighty being happen to be. 

ere is a rather poignant truth: Technology has done next to nothing to enhance telling the truth.  That is, it would seem that people are lying more now than ever before.  Flip-flopping, as they say, has become a part of our social reality.  By every indication, people simply say what is convenient.  This is rather striking when one considers that just about anything uttered can be recorded and often is recorded—especially in the case of individuals who are public figures. 

In view of this technological reality, one would have thought that there would have been an "insurgence" in truth telling.  Not so, however: lying is very much à la mode.  The question, though, is this:  Why has lying increased to such a phenomenal extent in a world where it has become a part of reality, at least for public figures, that what is said is recorded?

My explanation is that technology has very much occasioned a kind of disunity of the self.  And we have becoming increasingly adept at wrestling with a set of multiple selves.  Let me explain.

I have a Second Life account.  And while my Second Life activities are boring to the point of shadowing utter non-existence, the point of the matter is that there are a great many people who seem to have genuine alter egos on c—they live a fictitious life that they would not want a soul to know about.  But one hardly needs a Second Life account to pursue an alter ego.  Two cell phones will suffice.  One cell phone will be for me and my wife; and the other will be for the sexual escapades that I will have from time to time.  Like the other women, I need not bring the other cell phone home. 

Technology has made being devious an art form.  Let us see, with an email account that my wife knows nothing about and some anonymous surfing programs, I can engage  in heretofore unimaginable activities on line.  Add a tracphone to the mix, and one can easily enough take one’s on-line acquaintances to the “next level”. 

On my view, these things have contributed to the disunity of the self precisely because they have contributed mightily to people engaging dissimulating behavior in order to keep some activities hidden from others. 

Merely doing something in private is not at all the same as keeping activities hidden from others, though in both cases the activity is kept from the view of others.  There are lots of things that I do in private, where it is not the case that I am hiding the fact that I engage in these activities.  I go to the bathroom in private, though I hardly hide the fact that I go to the bathroom in private. 

Again, people who are romantically involved tend to have sex in private; and they might very well drop a hint that this is what they have done or will be doing at the next available moment: “We will be busy if you know what I mean”.  They do not hide the fact that sex is a part of their lives.  Rather, they are merely private about having sex.

Technology has masterfully exploited the seeming similarity between hiding an activity in which we are engaging and doing that activity in private, as both involve keeping the activity from the view of others.  It is hiding the activity, though, that involves duplicity. 

Technology has made it increasingly easier for us to keep unseemly behavior from the view of others; and thus technology has made it easier for us to be duplicitous.  It was technology that masterfully facilitated the duplicitous behavior on the part of ex-governor Eliot Spitzer. 

Now to the above, we need only add that technology has made it possible for us to doctor images and sound bites with such finesse that we can make things seem other than what they originally were.  I myself as a mere amateur can modify and mix music with sufficient skill that the changes I have made are utterly imperceptible.  I am sure that what I can do with music pales mightily in comparison to what others can do.  What this means, of course, is that it is some instances it is possible to make it appear that a person said just the opposite of what she or he in fact said. 

And with images, one can make a person look pleased when she or he was expressing dismay or the other way around; and so forth. 

So look at what we have.  On the one hand, technology has mightily facilitated the ability to engage in dissimulating behavior.  On the other, technology now makes it possible to alter images and sound bites to such an extent that what counts as fact and reality is readily called into question.  When we put these two things together what we get is that technology has masterfully undermined the commitment to truth in society. 

Or to put the point another way: The will to be truthful is being slowly but surely undermined.   Modern technology and self-disassociation go hand-in-hand together.  This means that the unity of the self that was marvelously valorized by Plato and Kant is being torn asunder by the combination of modernity and technology.  Increasingly, what we are is turning to be no more than what we appear to be at the moment.  A form of multiple-personality disorder is fast becoming the norm.  And perhaps the most poignant proof of this is just the fact that increasingly people seem to think that they are accountable only for what they say at the moment rather than also for what they said in the past.  It is as one is a fool for expecting consistency out of a person. 

This gives an entirely new meaning to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s claim that “A foolish consistency is hobgoblin of little minds”. 

What he meant, surely, is that only a fool would attach more importance to being consistent than to bending with reality.  He did not mean that reality amounts to no more than what a person declares it to mean.  That idea would have made no sense when Emerson penned those famous words.  Technology has allowed precisely this idea to have a heretofore unimaginable resonance in our lives.  What shall we do about it?  What can we do about it. 

We will be too much in the throes of the affliction of a kind of multiple personaliity to rescue ourselves?  I fear that we will be.

he precipitous decline of America can attributed to many things.  One of them, as it happens, is equality.  Of course, there is no formal tension between equality and excellence.  However, the way in which these two vectors play themselves out in America is utterly devastating.  This is for two reasons.  One is that the mere charge of racism has come to be none other than an extremely powerful political and social tool that has nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of an actual act of racism.  And the related factor is that once this charge is made against an individual, then he or she is effectively defenseless even if the charge has no basis in reality.

Consequently, people have become so concerned with making sure that the charge of racism cannot be made against them that they will tolerate mediocrity rather than insist upon excellence.  This is because in the present politically correct social climate it is way too easy for the mere insistence upon excellence to be construed as having racist motives: The “You-would-not-have-criticized me-if-I-had-been-white” claim.  If one is the boss who is white how does one prove that such a claim is just so much nonsense?  The answer, quite frankly, is that with rare exception one cannot.  One such exception is that one has been publicly insistent upon the requirement in question and one has publicly criticized whites who have failed to meet that requirement. 

Let it be the case, however, that a black or a Latino is doing something that is obviously wrong, but about which there has not been any public announcements, and a white criticizes that person.  Well, in that case all hell is apt to break out, because the white will invariably be seen as having acted from racist motives; and there is simply no way to diffuse things.  Herein lies the reason why excellence has taken a back seat to equality in America.  After all, anything other than praise of a black or a Latino by a white is apt to result in that white being called a racist by the person.  All that is needed is for the black or Latino to say “It just feels to me like that white person was being racist”. 

In this regard, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been key players in undermining excellence in America.  Anyone with an ounce of commonsense surely realizes that these two are more interested in maintaining their power base than promoting excellence among blacks.  And both of them use the charge of racism as none other than a way to do that.  The case of the three white guys at Duke University who were accused of raping a black woman stands as a most poignant case in point.  Sharpton and Jackson were no more interested in the facts of the case than I have been in becoming a cockroach. 

We now know for a fact that the charge of rape was entirely without merit.  We also know for a fact that neither Sharpton nor Jackson have shown an ounce of remorse for the train wreck occasioned by them of the lives of the three young white men.  There is no indication whatsoever that either Sharpton or Jackson said to black communities: “We can’t let this sort of thing happen again”. 

In this regard, I should also mention that white liberals are also a fundamental part of the problem.  For them, supporting the charge of racism, no matter how implausible it may be, is a kind of psychological redemption ticket—their way of proving to themselves that they are not racist.  Likewise, white liberals have never asked for any accountability with respect to the charge of racism; nor were they apologetic for riding the train that wrecked the lives of the three white Duke University students.  But, of course, white liberals always mean well no matter how much damage they manage to do; and we should not lose sight of that.

For all of his faults, this much is clear: When Martin Luther King made charges of racism, there was no doubt whatsoever that there actually was racism in place.  His charges of racism had credibility.  What is no longer the case nowadays is that charges of racism have credibility. 

We had precisely this utter absence of credibility with the Keith Sampson matter in 2007, where a white man was accused of making blacks uncomfortable because he was reading a book about how the Fighting Irish defeated the KKK.  Duh?  A black woman made that charge; and it was upheld by the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) affirmative action officer, who is also a black.  And once more, white liberal faculty members were essentially silent.  Is this not incredulous or what?

The Keith Sampson matter at IUPUI shows that the charge of racism can be made and entertained even when a white person is engaging behavior that is unequivocally the very opposite of racist behavior.  All it takes is for a black or a Latino to assert that she or he feels uncomfortable. 

Against this social -backdrop, a white person would have to be a fool to insist upon excellence when it comes to a black or a Latino.  Insisting upon excellence would make about as much sense as putting one’s hand in a fire and hoping that one’s hand will not be burned. 

Excellence is impossible if constructive criticism is ruled out of court.  And constructive criticism has floundered in the United States.  On the one hand, white people are rightly afraid of the charge of racism.  On the other hand, way too many black and Latino individuals seem to think that any criticism of them by another black or Latino shows a lack of solidarity with them on the part of the black or Latino.  Indeed, some would go so far as to accuse the person of being self-hating or harboring a desire to be white. 

The issue is not whether racism in various forms of subtlety still exists.  We can assume that it does.  The problem, rather, is that nowadays there is next to no room for constructive criticism to be made by a white of a black or a Latino without the charge of racism being raised.  And one untoward consequence of this is that across the board the demand for excellence has been progressively receding into the background.  After all, if excellence cannot be demanded of one group, then why bother demanding it of another group? 

Equality of shorn of excellence is utterly vapid and lacking in substance.  What it produces is not even a shadow of the better world for which folks like King hoped and struggled.  There is a very straightforward sense in which the black community is worse-off than it once was.  The argument of this essay can readily explain that fact.  No people can flourish in the absence of constructive self-criticism.  The rejection of the demand for excellence by whites as a form of racism has resulted in the absence of constructive self-criticism on the part of blacks.  This should come as no surprise. 

Excellence has no skin color.  It can only be wrong for whites demand excellence of blacks if it is also wrong for blacks to engage in constructive self-criticism, and so for blacks to demand excellence of themselves. 

And, of course, constructive self-criticism has become a precious commodity in general.  That is to be expected in a society that has made posturing about race far more important than occasioning the excellence of which human beings are capable. 

Notice the following irony.  During slavery, whites claimed that blacks lacked the wherewithal to achieve the intellectual heights of which whites are capable.  No one dares make such a claim nowadays.  Instead, no one demands of blacks that they achieve the intellectual heights of which all human beings regardless of race are capable.  Slavery, then, was the absence of freedom and, to freedom’s absence, the absence of excellence.  The present is none other than the most poignant contrast of an abundance of freedom on the part of blacks coupled with a most flagrant absence of excellence. 

A society whose citizens cannot demand excellence of one another regardless of race, color, or creed or whatever is a society that is fundamentally worse off for all regardless of race, color, or creed or whatever.  Make no mistake about it: That society is America.